LANSING (AP) -- Key lawmakers reached a deal Monday to strengthen the state's regulation of large-scale water withdrawals, paving the way for Michigan to approve a regional agreement preventing Great Lakes water from being sent elsewhere.
The legislation may reach Gov. Jennifer Granholm's desk by the end of the week, with votes coming as early as today.
Five states have ratified the Great Lakes Basin Compact, and Ohio's governor will sign it soon. Then Michigan and Pennsylvania would be the only states that have not approved it. Congress also must sign off.
The compact itself has wide support in Michigan because many fear that states in dry regions could eye the Great Lakes for their water needs. But the House and Senate have delayed sending the compact to Granholm while wrangling over the accompanying water use bills.
Negotiators on Monday settled monthslong differences over when to require state permits for the biggest water withdrawals and those affecting trout streams, and whether to let regulators prevent withdrawals that would not be in the public interest. Legislators have spent more than two years working on water rules.
Senate Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Chairwoman Patricia Birkholz, R-Saugatuck, said some farms, canneries, baby food makers and other large water users want to expand in the state.
"This legislation will give them certainty as to if and how they can grow and where they can grow," she said.
Some states in the region have approved the compact but passed "skeletal" accompanying water laws, leading to lengthy and expensive court fights, Birkholz said.
A major piece of the bills would be a new point-and-click computer tool measuring the ecological effects of water withdrawals. Golf courses, wineries, ski resorts, dairy farmers and others could use the technology to find out if their water usage would harm the environment.
"Economic development and job creation and protecting Michigan's natural resources are not mutually exclusive goals," said House Great Lakes and Environment Chairwoman Rebekah Warren, D-Ann Arbor.
Michigan law now requires state permits if a company wants to use more than 5 million gallons a day from the Great Lakes or 2 million gallons daily from inland waters. The legislation would make it 2 million gallons a day from all waters and 1 million gallons in "sensitive" regions where less water is available.
The bills also would make new or expanded water bottling plants get permits if they use more than 200,000 gallons a day, a drop from the current threshold of 250,000 gallons.
State approval for new or expanded water withdrawals also would be needed if fish populations such as trout in cold-water streams are reduced by 3 percent or more.
The Democratic-led House had wanted a tighter threshold for rivers and streams but lost out during negotiations. The Republican-led Senate gave in a bit by agreeing to tougher restrictions in areas with less water.
Environmentalists were disappointed the compromise does not instruct regulators to issue a permit only after concluding the project would not violate the public interest. The Senate opposed the provision.
"That is the major downside of the deal," said Cyndi Roper, state director for Clean Water Action.
Roper said the public trust language could have been used by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to distinguish between businesses that use water to make their products and bottled-water companies.
"The idea that we are just supposed to treat those water miners the same way we treat farmers or manufacturers or municipal water systems is absurd," Roper said.
In a key concession to the industry, the compact provides that water packaged in containers of 5.7 gallons or less and shipped outside the basin is not a diversion of Great Lakes water.
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